VULTUREHOUND MAY 2016 ISSUE 11
Hesitation Wounds
JEREMY BOLM
Heroes Reborn's
KIKI SUKEZANE
GOO GOO DOLLS YouTuber
FLULA Mothxr
PENN BADGLEY
E C R A GUY PE R A T S H S I R I K C A J E H T O T K A E P S E W
CAPTAIN AMERICA: A RETROSPECTIVE COMIC FILMS: FOR OR AGAINST // a tribute to rowdy roddy piper //
WELCOME FROM EDITOR
W
EDITORIAL David Garlick Editor / Design david.garlick@vulturehound.com
Michael Dickinson Online + Film Editor michael.dickinson@vulturehound.com
elcome to the latest issue were you will see two teams battling to decide if superhero movies are ruining cinema or if they are actually the saviours... Continuing the heroes theme we also chat with new Heroes Reborn star KIKI
Jaclyn O’Connell Music Editor
SUKEZANE.
shane.bayliss@vulturehound.co.uk
Our first Youtuber to feature in the magazine is FLULA, who chats with Grae about all things in his world. Jaclyn O’Connell features in her final issue as Music Editor chatting with with Goo Goo Doll’s JOHN REZEZNIK and Hesitation Wounds’ JEREMY BOLM We’ve chats with Mothxr’s PENN BADGLEY and of course, our cover star GUY PEARCE.
music@vulturehound.com
Grae Westgate TV Editor grae.westgate@vulturehound. com
Shane Bayliss Co- Live Editor
Kimberley Bayliss Co-Live Editor kimberley.bayliss@vulturehound. co.uk
ADVERTISING To discuss advertising please contact advertising@ vulturehound.com Cover photo: Lachlan Moore 2011 © Essential Media 2011
David Garlick
(@davidgarlick)
VULTUREHOUND
CUARON KIKI SUKEZANE
HEROES REBORN STAR SPEAKS WITH GRAE WESTGATE 04 VULTUREHOUND MAY 2016
KIKI SUKEZANE C
ult superhero drama Heroes finally returned to our screens this year with its long-awaited progeny, Heroes Reborn. Japanese actress Kiki Sukezane brings to life the kick-ass computer character Katana Girl, as well as her real-world counterpart, Miko Otomo. We were lucky enough to catch up with Kiki to discuss the show, as well as samurai swords and motion-capture back-flipping…
Miko is probably one of the strangest heroes the show has ever seen. Did you know how complicated the character was when you first
got the role? No! I didn’t know at all! When I got the part, I knew that she had to use a sword and that she had a lot of fight scenes, but I didn’t know her full story, because the writers were changing a lot, even when we were shooting! At the beginning she’s just this Japanese girl who lives in Tokyo and she also happens to be a video game character called Katana Girl. But she doesn’t know that she is a game character for almost half of the show. She’s trying to find her father, Hachiro Otomo (Hiro Kanagawa) and so in her journey with Ren (Toru Uchikado), she kind of finds out that she’s not really human.
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CUARON KIKI SUKEZANE Kiki was born in Kyoto, in a family noted for its samurai ancestry
"MIKO'S STORY IS REALLY NEW! THERE’S NOT MANY STORIES LIKE IT" How did you feel when you discovered that you weren’t “real”? (Laughs) I loved it! I love the story of Miko because it’s really new… There’s not many stories like that! To have a character that can go in and out of a game and fight… I felt that
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was really cool and really interesting to play. I had to play both the human and the game character. In the game, Evernow, I did all the motion capture, so I had a bunch of dots on my body. All the enemies were motion captured as well, so it’s all real movements. Except the flipping in the air and stuff. But all of the fighting is real movement, so that
was really cool.
How did you first get the part of Miko? That was an interesting story actually! I go to a samurai sword fighting club in L.A. and there’s a boy who’s a junior high school student who comes to the class every week. His mom knows the casting director, so she kind of introduced me to them and got me the audition. So I didn’t have a manager or an agent at that time. It was so lucky!
Heroes has such a huge following. How daunting was it to become a part of that? I couldn’t believe it until it actually aired in the U.S., because I was watching the original series back when I was in high school in Japan, so I really couldn’t believe that it had happened. I was so happy that I got the role!
Masi Oka gained a huge fanbase in Japan off the back of Heroes. Have you had that same reaction over there? Yeah, I think so! Probably more than Masi right now, because I have an agency in Japan who worked really hard for a couple of months getting me on talk-shows in Japan a lot. Right now, everyone knows me in Japan, which is great! I came to L.A. four years ago, and before that I was acting in Tokyo for a couple of years. I did two movies, but they weren’t really big movies. They only showed in a couple of theatres in Japan. Then, when I came to L.A., I did some TV shows produced by an American/Japanese company, but they never aired. So I never really did
"I NEVER REALLY DID ANYTHING BIG BEFORE HEROES REBORN" anything big before Heroes Reborn.
What first brought you to L.A.? I’ve wanted to be on TV since I was little. I’ve also wanted to work for UNICEF or something like that for a long time too. So I went to Tanzania after I graduated high school, and there I met someone who works as a volunteer, and I talked to him a lot about my future. He advised me to go to university to develop my skills and knowledge. But then at the same time I wanted to pursue acting. Then I thought about Angelina Jolie, and she does all the stuff that I want to do, using her name to help people. And that’s what I wanted to do, so Ww to L.A. seemed the right thing to get me there!
If Heroes Reborn were to get picked up for a second season on Netflix, or one of the other On Demand services, where do you see your character heading?
is just a game character who her father brought from Evernow into the real world. So he had a power. But Miko? We don’t know! Katana Girl found her plugged into the machine at the end, which means she must have some kind of power. Maybe she was just there because she was Hachiro Otomo’s daughter, but then that machine was created to absorb the powers. I don’t know, but I believe that human Miko must have some kind of power. I don’t know what it is, but I hope it’s something cool!
HEROES REBORN IS OUT ON DVD AND BLU-RAY FROM 9 MAY FROM UNIVERSAL PICTURES
I think Miko must have some sort of power. Katana Girl
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ALBUMS
ALBUMS OF THE YEAR SO FAR... LIL YACHTY LIL BOAT
With the first quarter of 2016 behind us, some of the VultureHound music staff got together to pick some of the best album releases that graced our ears from January 1st to March 31st.
of their actions. It makes for the type of album that could soundtrack a prom comfortably, with all the heightened emotions of that night boiled down to a stellar 17 tracks.
It’s a testament to how good Lil Boat is that after
ANIMAL COLLECTIVE PAINTING WITH
only a month of being out it’s already become my most listened to release this year. Lil Yachty has emerged as one of the
It’s nice hearing Animal
most unique voices in rap with breakout singles like
Collective having fun
‘Wanna Be Us’ and ‘One Night’ showcasing his mix of
again. After the mess that
autotuned croons and aggressive flows. The real star of Lil Boat though is the production from the likes of Burberry Perry, Grandfero and other Atlanta producers who give Lil Boat a summer ready sound.
was Centipede Hz I was worried about what Animal Collective would bring to the follow up, those worries were squashed after the first single ‘FloriDada” came out. Its bouncy drums and beautiful vocals brought me back to the bands peaks of Merriweather Post Pavilion
THE 1975 - I LIKE IT
and Strawberry Jam. The rest of Painting With follows ‘FloriDada’ with the same sense of levity that has made
WHEN YOU SLEEP
every listen an absolute joy.
FOR YOU ARE SO
Jake Doolin, Contributor
BEAUTIFUL YET SO UNAWARE OF IT
DAVID BOWIE – BLACKSTAR
I’ve never really listened to the 1975 before I Like
There can be no albums
It When You Sleep... came
of the quarter/year
out but something about this newest album intrigued me
list without featuring
enough to give it a chance.Thankfully I let curiosity get the
this album. Not simply
best of me because I Like When You Sleep... is one of the
because it was gifted to
best pop albums I’ve heard since Robyn’s Body Talk.
us by David Bowie, or even because of the sentimentality of it being his final record.
Matthew Healy’s lyrics find a sweet spot between longing teenager and forlorned adult confronting the consequences
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This album shows that Bowie could – even after decades
MUSIC MILK TEETH – VILE CHILD
in the biz – push everyone’s backs against the grain and metamorph into something else. Track after track is of transcendental experimentalism, swirling seamlessly from drum ‘n’ bass to future jazz. The artistic sentiment of this
Milk Teeth’s debut album
album will not be equalled in our lifetime.
Vile Child is exactly what music has been missing
KANYE WEST– THE LIFE OF PABLO TLOP may not have been praised as much as Yeezus, but it’s still a tight release. Bringing back the soul samples and skits from his early days, Kanye blends his musical repertoire into one coherent release that is still – even when seeped in nostalgia – hotter than anything else in the game. Any album with ‘I Love Kanye’ deserves recognition. Not just for his tongue-in-cheek stance on his own public image, but by underlining the method to his maddening artistry: he made Kanye. The persona is crafted and
for the past few years. A proper British punk foursome with a solid grunge base topped off by just enough angst ridden pop hooks to really grab you and not let go. The album was recorded with Neil Kennedy at the Ranch in 2015, and is studded with tracks that are affectionately dubbed in my household, ‘Becky Bangers’. Blomfield’s voice is exceptional on Vile Child, and her writing shines too particularly on tracks like ‘Kabuki’, an emotional acoustic ballad that absolutely destroys me every time I listen to it - and it’s even better live. Blast the Vile Child album now, then grab tickets to one of the gigs they have coming up this summer and get ready to sing along—they do not disappoint! Rhian Wilkinson, Music Reviews Editor
designed by Yeezy, and TLOP channels that.
SOLOMON GREY SOLOMON GREY
ZAYN – MIND OF MINE
On first listen, Solomon Grey’s self-titled debut not only pulls you in, it takes
It takes guts to drop a
your mind to places you
world-beating band to
didn’t know existed. The
find your own musical direction, but Zayn Malik did that and it paid off wonderfully. Mind of Mine is the right blend of mature themes and immature approaches, embracing his existing fan base while also drawing in a new one. Malik might have a long way to go before shaking off the ‘kids artist’ image of his 1D days, but his brand of midnight R&B and tracks like ‘iT’s YoU’ and ‘TiO’ certainly helps. But seriously Zayn, sort out the spelling. Tom Roden, Music Subeditor
tracks ‘Electric Baby’ and ‘Sweet 84’ would satisfy most electro-pop enthusiasts, but it’s moments like ‘Choir To The Wild’, ‘Hidden Places’ and ‘Epitaph’ that make this album more than just your standard electro-pop fare. The instrumentation is, at times mesmerising, effortlessly fusing classical composition with contemporary production techniques. If Broken Bells ever decide to do a track-bytrack cover of Nine Inch Nails’ The Fragile, the result would still be some distance away from this cinematic electroorchestral delight.
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ALBUMS SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS SVIIB One of the joys of hearing SVIIB for the first time was the realisation that no,
Lead singer and keyboardist Carly Comando says of the album’s inspiration, “every song is a simple concept, musically and lyrically, and I wanted each song to be hard hitting emotionally while having a captivating hook.” Break also brings to light the realities of how quickly life moves and that each day isn’t all unicorns and rainbows. A heartfelt handwritten letter to the world, Slingshot Dakota truly outdid themselves with this release.
it hadn’t been squashed by the huge weight of
DEN-MATE – DEN-MATE
expectation surrounding its release. Alejandra Deheza hadn’t produced a tombstone, a mourning, sorrowful epitaph to her late band mate Benjamin Curtis. Instead SVIIB is an album of truths, stories about the joys, pain and stupidities of love. Not only is the sentiment
I seem to be having an
beautiful, the music borders on electro-pop perfection.
ongoing love affair with
The opening three track run in particular is so addictive,
female leads—and Julia
it takes a lot of self-discipline to not reach for the repeat
Hale of Den-Mate is my
button.
current obsession. Her dark, atmospheric voice gives me chills as her cool words brush over my ears.
THE BLACK QUEEN - FEVER DAYDREAM When I first found out Greg Puciato had formed a synthpop band my excitement boarded on
Songs like ‘Turning Green’ and ‘Candy’ have some heavy Crystal Castles influence to them, while slow jams like ‘For Free’ and ‘Zombie’ seem as though they were created solely for the purpose of sitting and listening intently. With a limitless talent for writing and creating perfectly torn apart layers, Den-Mate’s self-titled debut has me on the edge of seat. As I wait impatiently for their next release, I’ll just drive my neighbors mad by blasting this album on repeat.
euphoric. The vocal range he’s displayed on his four Dillinger Escape Plan albums
BASEMENT– PROMISE EVERYTHING
has been phenomenal, so to my mind Fever Daydream couldn’t possibly fail. It’s dark, gothic and incredibly seductive. Puciatos voice has never sounded more soulful. Parallels to Nine Inch Nails have been drawn, but for my money Puciato would
There are not enough
out croon Trent Reznor, any time. Side projects come
words in the English
and go, often gimmicky and soulless but here we have a
language to describe
carefully crafted labor of love. This isn’t just an 80’s revival
how good this album
cash-in. Daniel Withey, Contributor
SLINGSHOT DAKOTA – BREAK After four years and the wildly successful Dark Hearts, Pennsylvanian pair, Slingshot Dakota, set off to rip apart any musical standards with their fourth
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album, Break.
is. I mean, I don’t even know how I just started typing right now—where do you begin? It’s quite clear that Basement have rendered me speechless with their quasi-comeback, Promise Everything. Surprising? Not really. After 2012’s stupidly good Colormeinkindness and 2014’s heartfelt Further Sky EP, the band decided to take a hiatus. Little did we know, they would come back in 2016, guitars a-blazin’ with what may be one of my top five favorite albums of the year. Jaclyn O’Connell, Music Editor
YOUTUBERS
Words: Grae Westgate
How difficult was the move to Los Angeles? It’s very different for me; I’m from a smaller town. LA is a very specific city. Everyone is always talking about “network, network, network!”. In my town, the network is if the wi-fi is broken, so it’s a very different place! And the weather is weird! I’m missing rain, I’m missing clouds. When they come it’s like a dance party for me! I miss many things, but I know I must live here for now to achieve my goals. The language fascinates me too. When I first came, I was working at a cubicle in an office, and I was very close the snack room, so I could always hear the conversations in there. One was about some event, or birthday party or something and they were speaking about Jennifer who was working in another department. I was still learning these phrases of America. And of course, if you are a party pooper, it sounds very dirty, and I hope you do not come to my party! It’s just a nasty habit! That’s where the inspiration for Jennifer is a Party Pooper came from.
INTERVIEW erman YouTuber Flula Borg has made waves across the globe with his unique comedy style and hilarious musical collaborations. Best known as the acid-tongued a capella star of Pitch Perfect 2, we were lucky to catch up with him as he prepared for his new tour of the states. Prepare for snacks, Streamies and a shared love of Genesis…
G
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FLU
Your love of these strange phrases certainly comes across in German with a German With Flula. Are all of these bizarre sayings real, or are you trying to trick the English speaking world? They are real! What I’m learning though is that some are very much in a region, so Germans are like “what?? I’ve not heard this before!!”, because it’s from my region of Germany, or my mother’s. So sometimes maybe only 200,000 Germans know it. I always assumed that everyone knows rattenscharf (“ratspicy”, meaning sexy) or dreikasehoch (“three cheeses high”, meaning short and cute), but sometime Germans just think I’m weird! But I like them!
Speaking of Germans being weird, you often play upon your “strangeness” in your work. Is the Flula that we see on screen the same Flula that we would meet in real life? Well I think it’s like anything in the world. Sometimes I will do something because I find that it is entertaining, and so maybe that is more strange. And then sometimes Flula made an appearance in Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip and will star in Killing Hasselhoff
ULA MAY 2016 VULTUREHOUND 13
YOUTUBERS I am just tired and I have a thought in my brain and I must express it, and maybe that is weird because I am weird. I think weirdness is having a spectrum and sometimes my real person is in one part, and sometimes my not real person is in a different location. It’s like an amusement park; there are many rides! Is this making sense? I don’t really know! I’m not really sure what is happening… I just do things, and then I eat!
How did Mama and Papa Flula feel when you first said you were moving to LA to pursue a career in YouTube? I didn’t say that was what I was doing. I just said “hey guys, I’m feeling a lot of boredom, I’ve written one techno song about poodles, and it’s time to move.” So the reaction was of confusion and much concern for many years. They are not young buckarosies, so they need to understand what I am doing in a normal way. YouTube is not normal for those guys. A movie, they understand, so it’s been very helpful to be in a “real” thing. They still don’t get the YouTube. But then I still don’t get it!
You’re moving on to film a lot more now. Outside the YouTube community, you are best known as Pieter Kramer from Das Sound Machine. How was it being part of Pitch Perfect? It was a dream. Normally I make YouTube videos, which are just me and one camera and not many snacks. With a film, there’s a lot of snacks and a lot of cameras. I
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enjoyed both of these things very much! But you know what was fun? We were allowed to play and experiment with our words and our actions… Dude, it was great! Rebel was great. We had so much fun talking smack to each other! I loved it, and very much want to do more of it for sure! That said, I’ve seen many films where the bad guys at the end usually die, or they are
lost or in a prison or something. I would be surprised if we are back for the next film, but I would love it! I would love it if we were in Pitch Perfect 3 through 12. Once you have a franchise, you don’t stop. How many McDonalds are there? You know? I’m still waiting for my Oscar nomination for Alvin and the Chipmunks (The Road Chip) though. You never know, it might
This would be nice!
“I’m not really sure what is happening… I just do things, and then I eat!”
If you could Auto-Tune with anyone living or dead, who would it be, and what song would you perform? There’s a song called We Are the World which was very famous in 1985. I would like to make an Auto-Tune with all the people in this video, and also each of the people in an individual way, but also including recent people I have just met. Like Shaquille O’Neal. He is large and in the change.
How did it feel to win a Streamy award last year? I don’t understand how it happened. I’m still demanding a recounting of the votes! It’s not justice, but I’m very happy to receive it. It’s like when you go to the vending machine and you just want a Snickers and then you receive a Streamy! A big surprise! In this category (Streamy for Comedy) all of the other nominees are great. I am very confused, but happy! Someone voted, I think, or maybe a monkey was just pushing the “Flula” button ten thousand times in the vote booth. But, hey, thanks monkey! All of the other nominees are so great and amazing.
What songs are popping in your jams right now? My jam popping is not really with current events, because everyone is always worrying about what is hot and new. For work I must do the hoppy poppy jams, but in my time when I am perhaps showering, or shaving my neighbour, I would say right now, it’s Grand Funk Railroad from the 1970s and 80s. What a funky band of rock! But this will
come next year. I like to do anything that is fun and weird and strange, and to be inside a Chipminks movie is all of these things, and also dope. My goal is to do more of these things. I would love to be in the next James Bond. I would love to be in Fast and Also More Furious. All of these things would be great! I will be the German Channing Tatum… Totem… Tatum…
MAY 2016 VULTUREHOUND 15
YOUTUBERS inside. It’s whatever is working! I will for sure perform some music and tell some stories and do some songs and strange dances as well. Some DSM, some ATM if people are paying for the tickets, and if some LMFAO occurs that is fine as well! We are starting very tiny; I live most months now in Los Angeles, so the smart move for us was to try just the local places. I would love to come to the United Kingdom, and Germany of course. To start though, it’s better maybe not to order eighteen steaks, but just one hamburger!
Photo: Marc Royce
“I’m still waiting for my Oscar nomination for Alvin and the Chipmunks” change tomorrow. Then it will be Eurythmics or something. There are so many funky artists that have been here for decades that are just dope! I shall listen to those guys. Maybe David Bowie, or Genesis. I love Genesis! I love the weird stuff;
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I Can’t Dance… That whole album is great! It’s so good!!! Put that on record! Put it on all the records!! Put it on a Genesis record!!!
Tell us about your new tour…
I’ve never done an official tour before, so it’s my first time! I started with live performance as a career, so to come back to it is what I have always wanted. I love to smell the perspiration from the crowd and also from my own body. It’s very weird, but also great. So this is my goal; the smell of sweat! I don’t really understand how comedy is working, but sometimes it occurs, and I let it
And what is the plan for after the tour? I’m going to start to make more collaborations with YouTubers. I need to return of the Mac! I’m also releasing two movies within the next year. One is about a strange cowboy poet, and one is about two dudes who are hiking because one of their wives left him. That’s called Buddymoon. And then, a new album is coming, which is going to be my Animalbum, with all the songs about animals. One of the songs is called I Miss You, Pony. Spoiler alert! We are working hard to get my booty and torso into some new places for fun times!
You can subscribe to Flula at: youtube.com/user/djflula, and show tickets are available at flulaborg.com/ events
MARVEL
CAPTAIN AMERICA
A RETROSPECTIVE aptain America: Civil War is easily one of the most anticipated major releases of 2016. It’s a superhero blockbuster extravaganza with an ensemble cast and it stands as the culmination of years of careful planning and intricate storytelling across multiple movies and franchises. It’s the type of movie for which a box office prediction north of a billion dollars worldwide is considered a safe bet.
C
It seems unfathomable that Captain America: The First Avenger was released just a little over five years ago, at a time
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where a superhero movie could make “just” 370 million dollars worldwide and be considered a hit. Comic book movies have made leaps and bounds since then, mainly because of the unprecedented success of The Avengers, known in the UK as Avengers Assemble. The Avengers was a carefully executed gamble that payed off in full and changed the landscape of blockbusters forever, and it was movies like The First Avenger that laid the groundwork for that success. The Marvel Cinematic Universe, shepherded by Disney and Marvel Studios, officially started with
HOW COULD CAPTAIN AMERICA EVER BE ACCEPTED BY A GLOBAL AUDIENCE
The first edition prints of his first issue auction at a whopping $343K
Photo: Zade Rosenthal/Marvel 2016
Iron Man back in 2008. The idea was to introduce a handful of characters to a mainstream audience in a series of solo films and then have all of them come together in a team-up movie. The solo movies would establish the characters, their backstories, their supporting cast, while also building a framework for a grander narrative. It was a complex storytelling engine that ran smoothly because all of its moving parts were individually distributed among a handful of movies, as opposed to being crammed into one. Characters and plot points were organically introduced at a steady pace that allowed
audiences to become familiar and comfortable with them over time. Out of all the movies in what is now known as Phase One of the MCU (Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, The First Avenger, The Avengers), The First Avenger stood out the most. It was a WWII-era period piece action movie with a main character dressed as the American flag. It was a hard sell from the start. And yet, five years later, Captain America is one of the most iconic superheroes on the big screen. How did that happen? One of the greatest challenges
when it comes to bringing Captain America to life is the very nature of him as a character. How can someone called Captain America, who even visually projects the USA by proudly wearing the stars and stripes, ever be accepted by a global audience as anything more than a tool for propaganda? After all, the character was created in the 1940s, the Golden Age of Comics, as a foil for Adolph Hitler, a real life super villain. He’s the embodiment of American patriotism that stands firm against the Nazi menace, which anyone could get behind at the time, but these days can end up looking a little silly and
MAY 2016 VULTUREHOUND 19
Photo: Zade Rosenthal/Marvel 2016
MARVEL
Captain America was the first Marvel hero to get his own film
overwrought. Captain America: The First Avenger had the difficult task of establishing Steve Rogers as a hero not just of the USA, but of the world. Rogers may be born in America (on the 4th of July no less), but he fights for all people. A key moment in the film has Steve proclaim that he doesn’t like bullies, no matter where they’re from. If he sees injustice or wrongdoing, he will stand up against it, because it’s in his nature to do so. At the start of the film, Steve Rogers is a short, skinny young man who keeps getting rejected from the military because of various health and physical problems. Yet he persists, trying to enlist again and again, because he feels it’s his duty to stand up and fight. It’s that resolve and moral backbone that earns him the respect of Dr. Erskine, a scientist that can use a serum he invented to create soldiers with superhuman abilities. The serum gives Steve his powers, but it doesn’t change him as a person. It’s that strong willed, good-natured young man that The First Avenger wants audiences to get to know, not just a symbol of America - and it works. Chris Evans brought a humility and earnestness to the character that made the boy scout seem approachable, and thanks to the efforts of the special effects team, the brilliant visual effects that shrunk Evans down for the first third of the movie were incredibly convincing. The movie actually embraced the propaganda element,
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integrating into the character’s backstory. Captain America’s costumed identity is created specifically to sell war bonds. The bright colors, the stars and stripes - it starts out as an act, as something silly looking, but eventually becomes a symbol. Steve grows fond of his costume, and so does the audience. The movie earns the right to its ridiculous attire and does its best to make the costume look like something a soldier might actually wear, too. The time period the movie was set in also helped immensely. There’s an inherent simplicity to the good versus evil struggle of WWII, which allowed for a bigger focus on high-flying adventure and character development. The end result was a swashbuckling old-school action movie that embraced its silliness, but also respected its world and characters. With Captain America: The First Avenger, director Joe Johnston successfully brought the Star-Spangled Man with a Plan to the big screen, against seemingly all odds. What happened next? The Avengers introduced all of its characters to a global audience much larger than anything the solo outings that came before it could muster. Captain America’s role in that movie was to grow into the position of being the team’s leader and thanks to Chris Evan’s performance and Joss Whedon’s confident, snappy writing and direction, the character did just that. He
fought to protect the Earth alongside its mightiest heroes, winning the hears and minds of viewers everywhere. That movie also planted the seeds of tension between Captain America and Iron Man that will culminate in this year’s confrontation between the two in Civil War. Each of the sequels to established franchises (Thor, Iron Man, Captain America) that followed The Avengers saw a noticeable bump in their box office. Audiences now knew who these characters were and they wanted to see more of them in action. Captain America would return in 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, directed by Joe and Anthony Russo. The Winter Soldier was a movie that surprised critics and audiences alike with how great it was. Not
CAPTAIN AMERICA IS FORCED TO REEVALUATE HIS ROLE IN THE NEW WORLD
because any one the previous movies weren’t good, or even great, but TWS was such a bold, different direction for the character and the franchise to take and it was so expertly handled that almost no one saw it coming. Some, myself included, consider it to be one of the best Marvel movies and one of the best superhero movies ever made. The idea of taking a clear-cut, boy scout character like Captain America and dropping him in the contemporary world of espionage and intrigue was fascinating. The world had changed in the 70 years since Steve Rogers fought the Nazis and he has to decide if he’s still comfortable following someone else’s orders. Good and bad, friend and ally are no longer lines in the sand. TWS is all about secrets and conspiracies, shadowy organizations and mysterious threats. Captain America is forced to re-evaluate his beliefs and his role in this new world, and seeing him so conflicted brought a whole new dimension to the character. The movie also now existed alongside the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which meant an expanded supporting cast that brought in some familiar faces. Scarlet Johansson reprised her role as Black Widow in quite possibly the most layered and complex portrayal of the character on the big screen yet, and her relationship and chemistry with Steve was one of the highlights of that movie, as was the introduction of Anthony
Mackie’s Falcon. TWS was a rapid departure not just from The First Avenger, but from Marvel movies in general, showing Marvel’s commitment to challenging themselves to be better and to build on what they’ve already achieved. It was darker, grittier and touched on real life issues, like domestic surveillance, in a way that didn’t feel forced. It retained the core of the character that has made him an icon for more than seven decades, while also exploring new possibilities to grow that legacy. It’s no wonder that Joe and Anthony Russo were tapped to return not only to direct the upcoming Captain America: Civil War, but also the mega-event Avengers: Infinity War, a two-part epic that will be released in 2018 and 2019, respectively. Captain America is a great many things - a super soldier, an Avenger, a war veteran. What the Marvel movies have always remembered, however, is that he is also just a kid from Brooklyn. He’s human, like us. Flawed, relatable. Behind the shield there’s also a man, and if you can make audiences understand who he is and what he fights for, you can dress him in whatever silly outfit you want.
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MARVEL
COMIC BOOK MOVIES
FOR OR AGAINST
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AGAINST
WHY COMIC BOOK FILMS ARE RUINING CINEMA E.C. GREGG
ome time ago, film makers were passionate about creating quality comic book adaptations that were faithful to the original source material. Take 2005’s Sin City directed by Robert Rodriguez and 2009’s Watchmen directed by Zack Synder for example. Both of these productions were obviously made by people that already had love for a graphic novel that inspired them, otherwise they wouldn’t have bothered. Both brilliant films in similar and diverse ways. Notice I haven’t mentioned Sin City: A Dame to Kill For or Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice…I can’t think of any reasonable explanation as to why the Sin City sequel is so poor, it’s just something we have to live with.
S
Photo: Zade Rosenthal/Marvel 2016
The Spider-Man trilogy with Toby Maguire taking the lead and 2003’s Hulk with Eric Bana, were the only really popular Marvel universe characters kicking around on the big screen. The three Spidey films are distinctly below par and Hulk is fucking horrendous. A highly respectable cast was acquired for both of the high profile comic book character’s films but the overall production still managed to fail. It was in 2008 when Robert Downey Jr. was perfectly cast as Tony Stark/Iron Man in Jon Favreau’s Iron Man. Downey Jr.’s arrogant and comedic portrayal of the eccentric
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MARVEL billionaire genius paved the way for a new era in comic book movies. More importantly, apparently, it made money. The people of Hollywood got an instant erection for comic book adaptations and obviously more had to be made. The faster the better. Let’s skip a few years to Avengers Assemble. Thor, Captain America and Iron Man 2 have had great success at the box office and the narrative leads nicely into Joss Whedon’s 2012 comic book masterpiece. Still no one can quite figure out how to make a decent Hulk stand-alone film but that’s beside the point. Avengers Assemble is a great film and Whedon should be incredibly proud of what he achieved. It was around this time however, that the whole genre became very predictable. What I mean by this is that the Iron Man films were never going to stop at two outings. Thor and Captain America were undeniably getting sequels. Give everything a fucking trilogy and beyond if needs be. Apart from The Incredible Hulk. Fuck The Incredible Hulk and his inability to sustain a character specific movie. The main problem with superhero movies is that they are superhero movies. Good versus evil. Evil might get the upper hand initially but the audience always know that eventually Good will prevail. Put whatever Marvel or DC character and setting into a film and you still get the same formula. Add an attractive female into the mix and it’s almost cliché. It’s all very safe storytelling and it’s grown incredibly stale. There’s no risk in making a comic book film, just Marvel branding so it will make cash money. I’m all for making money (I have bills to pay too) but it becomes a problem when that seems to be the main focus when a new superhero movie is released. No passion or drive, just keen for a big fuck off pay cheque at the end of it. In 2012 I was part of a minority that didn’t overly care about the release of Avengers Assemble, I was eagerly waiting for the concluding chapter of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy. Why? Batman Begins is sensational and The Dark Knight is phenomenal. Finally someone had come along with a vision of the Batman universe that wasn’t a farcical family friendly setting. Taking the story to seriously dark places that previously had only been witnessed in the graphic novels. If I had a hat on, I’d take it off to Mr Nolan as he succeeded in delivering true representation of what Batman actually is. The Dark Knight Rises continued the narrative beautifully.
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WAS THERE ANY FUCKING NEED FOR AN ANT-MAN FILM Yes, it follows the classic superhero film structure but it is solidified in the gloomy backdrop of Nolan’s vision. As The Dark Knight Trilogy and The Avengers saga were made in a similar time period, I simply can’t understand why Marvel are still banging out innocent, parental guidance productions. What really boils my piss is that now there seems to be movie deals for any character that is linked to a comic book, with the Marvel universe being guilty of this especially. Was there any fucking need for an Ant-Man film? I mean even Aquaman is being made. Look at most pop-culture (The Big Bang Theory in particular) and Aquaman is the butt end of most superhero jokes. You can cast horse-lord badass Khal Drogo all you want, the only reason Aquaman is being made is so that DC can make The Justice League. More easy family oriented garbage. The only glimmer of hope over the horizon is Suicide Squad. The concept of Suicide Squad is completely opposite to your regular superhero movie as they are all anti-heroes or villains. Characters in Suicide Squad die and are replace with different villains, so this will fuck around with your emotional connection to the characters much like Game of Thrones. Anyone familiar with GoT will know how ruthless George R.R. Martin is when disposing of popular characters. I for one sincerely hope that Suicide Squad follows in the same suit. GoT has gargantuan global following, and we all know that Hollywood only produce what is currently popular. So there’s hope. The comic book genre has become so tried and tested over recent years. It’s time for a change. Bring back the Western or Gangster genres. Just please try something new. Asking movie goers to pay £20 a ticket at the cinema for an endless amount of films about the same basic plot is just obscene. Unfortunately it won’t stop. Not until Hollywood has milked the mother fucker dry. So I’ll see you at the premier of The 5th Avengers film. Yay.
AGAINST
WHY COMIC BOOK FILMS ARE RUINING CINEMA RENÉ ADAMS
A
s the right honourable gentleman has already mentioned, the comic book film industry sways away from the harder to depict characters, and prefers to continue with its banality factory.
There is a hub of irony in Hollywood comic book films, the attitude is: “Go for the jugular!”, “Go for the kill”. Yet anything deeper than Scarlett Johansson’s arse is impossible. Most of their scripts are shy, bloodless in spirit, and the worst types of cowards: those who actually have the power to create anything, but mostly just dribble. I’m a hypocrite. If I could get paid to dribble, Moses couldn’t part the sea. Comic book films work best when we look at the truth: all of the characters are nutters.
The formula is simple: comic book films only work when they talk about this madness. What I’d like to
AFTER AVENGERS ASSEMBLE THE GENRE BECAME VERY PREDICTABLE
see in Captain America Civil War, is a face-off between old-school and new-school actors and actresses, where their acting skills are compared. Old-school: Keaton ripping his rubber mask off and begging Pfeiffer to stop the insanity. Simple. Memorable. The apex of exposing the fact that Batman may give it up if he could make another person leave the sociopathic world as well. New-school: “Hey the audience lapsup dog sick... Just shoot the fucker up with roids and push him on.” We can even follow the years where things went to shit: 1998, 2002, 2004, using a particular film.
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MARVEL Back in 1998, I watched Blade on a dodgy DVD I bought from a random bloke in a Hong-Kong market. It watched like a cobweb, like you’d expect, and I wondered if it was a B-movie at times, because of the shades, and the dirty atmosphere. I watched it about ten years later on, and it didn’t clear up that much. It wasn’t the quality of the copy, it was just the simple fact that it was meant to look that way. Most of us know the opening scenes, youths doused in blood, dancing in a back alley dive. It worked. Even Blade II worked, just. Then hurricane Ryan Reynolds got employed to make funnies, and we decided that comic book films + depth don’t make sense. Some escape the asylum, and dance like Marv after a few shots. But that’s rare. Nearly everyone drank the cool-aid. And Jim Jones was put on a fat salary. They like to have a little joke in their films, as shown in Captain America I & II, plus all of the Avengers siblings. We’re not fighting the Chinese, the commies, or the terrorists any more, we’re fighting dark powers. As in occult hoopla. The ‘dark side’. Which is fine, except for the fine detail: that by exciting the adrenal system with waves of violence, sex, explosions, and forgettable narratives, you train a person to react positively to these things, mechanising them, and diminish their individual will. Cue what the dark side actually is, and what makes the current mainstream giggle when playing golf at the weekend. One of the few members of the make-up and Disney club family that got interesting was The Avengers Assemble (2012), and even Loki had time for a nice perm. It’s not that these films need to be heavier, or the usual comic book aficionado’s croon: “Hey the comics were better!” (they are), it’s that they give you the wrong idea. Wonder Woman doesn’t just suddenly appear like a hot STD, there was a lot of care put into her relationship with Batman back in the day. She fancied the balls off him, and the legendary writers of JLI back in the 80’s and 90’s (the ‘Giffen & DeMatteis run’) were always pushing the fuck card, putting them on missions together etc. But their stories were nuanced and human, as all good comic narratives are, and went into their lives, their peculiarities, their inner banters, and was often just about two working people. It resonated. Jolly times or no. And they didn’t just suddenly appear, like a Playboy pop-up book.
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HULK IS HORRENDOUS Like E.C. Gregg mentioned, the characters with any true conflict are left out of the arena, and the ones left in are marionettes. Some talent stands out, and they take over the screen, like Robert Downy Jnr, yet again, a professional who made his teeth decades back, and is like a cure for a laissez-faire scene. It’s people like this who are the real heroes, and people like the Martin Bashirs of the world who seem to be running the cinema burger-mill (if you haven’t seen the interview, you need to). The worst thing anyone can do to a legacy is replicate it, spank it, and make money from it. This also puts out another a message: that mediocrity is fine, and is just a part of life. It is. But when you work in the film industry, you pollinate many people’s minds, and you inadvertently admit defeat if you don’t create something new from an adaptation. You’re saying: I clock in, I clock out. The anti-artist mindset. And you jeopardise the creative potential of future generations who haven’t seen classics before the millennium or so. Harlan Ellison said it well with I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.
We all like to be entertained, but I could do that by telling you my favourite paedophile joke. It wouldn’t be art, it would just be something that I’d told my mates a million times. They know the set-up, they know the story, they know the kicker. If Van Gough was alive, he’d cut his other fucking ear off.
Photo: Marvel 2016
FOR! WHY COMIC BOOK FILMS ARE AWESOME FOR CINEMA
DOCTOR STRANGE PROMISES A REALITY BENDING VISUAL STYLE
KAMBOLE CAMPBELL
s superhero movies have recently flooded the film market, there is something of a backlash from the viewer fatigue of there simply being so many, and knowing that Marvel, DC, Sony and Fox aren’t going to let up any time soon – Marvel especially having films planned for the better part of the next decade, with about 2 or 3 films a year. This may be fatiguing for some, but for those who enjoy seeing their favourite heroes brought to life on screen, we’re in the midst of a golden age.
A
While great superhero films such as Batman, The Dark Knight, Spider-Man, and Spider-Man 2 have come and gone, Marvel Studios are trying something unprecedented: an intertexual fictional universe that continues to be an increasingly successful machine. There was a part of comic books that the films were missing, the thrill of seeing your favorite heroes trade barbs and blows, or help each other defeat a common enemy. Or just seeing them hang out. with an expansion to broadcast television and online streaming with their Netflix shows. The story telling potential, and the potential for entertainment has
transcended boundaries of mediums, with crossovers having occurred between film and television. If there’s any main criticism to be drawn of the superhero films of recent years, is that they’re still flooded with white male protagonists, something which isn’t to change for another couple of years until Wonder Woman and Black Panther are finally released – hopefully DC and Marvel can loosen their fairly notorious creative stranglehold on Ryan Coogler so to tell a story that stands above the rest. This isn’t to say that Marvel Studios absolutely lacks variety, but there is an increasing homogeny of styles that is often brought up in critical discussions of each film. The medium of comics is one that promises unique visual styles with each artist, and so far the films haven’t entirely lived up to that promise, but only within that studio. The best example of an adaptation done right, is Edgar Wright’s cult hit Scott Pilgrim Vs The World. With kinetic, vividly colourful visuals and a lean, intelligent script, Scott Pilgrim is a gold standard for comic book movies that hasn’t quite been met yet – but there’s still time. The recently released trailer for Doctor Strange promises a reality bending visual style that is yet to
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FOR!
MARVEL
WHY COMIC BOOK FILMS ARE AWESOME FOR CINEMA HARRY JAM
be seen in the Marvel machine, and with the successes of the significantly darker Daredevil and Jessica Jones and the attempts at differing tones in Phase 3, Marvel Studios is still showing creative promise on top of its all but certain financial success. As Spielberg has said, albeit a little more ruthlessly, it’s just another stage in blockbuster cinema. In the past it was detective noirs, then westerns, melodramas, etc. The superhero comic book movie is a phase of cinema just like any other, and it’s finally giving comic book fans adaptations to look forward to on the big screen, rather than dreading another Daredevil or Catwoman. It’d be a shame to entirely dismiss this phase of cinema before it fully reached it’s potential for the entertaining, thoughtful and most importantly, inclusive source materials Marvel Studios are so fondly trying to replicate.
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he movie industry is saturated with superhero stories at the moment. And the industry is saturated with fans that are becoming indifferent towards them. But we shouldn’t hold Iron Man saving the world again and again and again in indifference. The tin suited billionaire is merely radioactive waste-product of a great machine: the comic book/ movie collaboration. Something we should be grateful for. Here’s why.
T
The comic book is a great breeding ground for great characters. Batman, SpiderMan, Superman, the X-Men, Constantine, Hellboy, The Watchmen, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; the list goes on and on. Original protagonists that we would never have seen if it wasn’t for the humble comic strip. And they’re arguably not even the best bit. Think of the baddies….
Not only are comic books a great breeding ground for great characters they’re a great space for writers to be able to write, and write incredible stories. In no other genre of prose can such vivid images of good and evil be created. And in no other genre does the writer have the scope of resources to twist and tangle these opposing ideals in an almost infinite amount of scenarios using superpowers and billionaires and time travel, other worlds and multiple dimensions. And they’re a handy yard stick. The continual rebooting of superhero franchises allows audiences to rate acting talents in direct comparison with movie stars portraying the exact same role. Who’s your favourite Batman? Who’s your favourite Joker/Spiderman/Superman/ Catwoman/Daredevil?
CUARON GUY PEARCE
Guy Pearce
“Jesus, I’ve b Photos: ©Lachlan Moore c/o Essential Media
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Guy is a great actor, he’s not even reading the newspaper
been lucky” MAY 2016 VULTUREHOUND 31
CUARON GUY PEARCE
Words: Grae Westgate
“The difficulty in playing any character is feeling you’re the right person For the job.”
We spoke Walking Dead stars Josh McDermitt, Michael Cudlitz, Ross Marquand, and Anndrew Lincoln.
ustralian actor Guy Pearce has played a huge range of roles over the course of his career, from dog-loving Mike in Neighbours, to vengeful Leonard in Memento. In his latest role, he returns to his homeland as erstwhile lawyer Jack Irish. We were lucky enough to chat with Guy about
A
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the show, as well as his success in America, and the legacy of a certain infamous drag act…
So, for those who are unfamiliar with the series, who is Jack Irish? Jack’s a man who, in his former life was a relatively successful lawyer, and had a fairly ambivalent view of his own life and the world, but was
struck down by tragedy when his wife was murdered by one of his clients. This series, Jack Irish, and the films that we’ve done, are based on some Peter Temple novels that are quite successful in Australia. We made the first three books of that series into three separate TV movies. This current series is loosely based on the fourth and final book, so we decided instead of making a one-off TV film that we would actually make a six-part series and
Guy turned down the lead in DareDevil in ‘03
Photo: Essential Media and Entertainment
expand the story. So where we see Jack now is coming out of the debacle that his life became after his wife was murdered. He went on a terrible trail of drinking and drug taking, and really went off the deep end. In the book, and in the series, we see Jack having got his life together to some degree. He’s not really a lawyer anymore; he works, not as a private detective, but on the fringes of the criminal world, and has a good sense of justice about him, so he finds himself helping people who are caught up in something that may not exactly be their fault. He’s driven by a sense of loyalty and justice, but he’s quite ambivalent about most things, so there’s a nice contradictory energy about his involvement in
these crimes that he’s either trying to solve, or just trying to understand. He’s one of those people that just finds himself in rough situations and quite often thinks “how the hell did I get here?” But he’s a smart guy with a bunch of friends, so we see him dabble in a variety of other activities in his life; there’s some illegal horse fixing going on, and it’s very Melbourne-centric. We shot in Melbourne, and the original books really look at the gritty streets of Fitzroy. For anyone who knows Melbourne at all, they will have heard of the old Fitzroy football club, so you really get the true sense of the city from reading the books and watching the show.
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CUARON GUY PEARCE Were you a big fan of the books before you got the part? To be honest, I hadn’t read them! (laughs) I knew of them, but I’m a terrible reader, and as my job requires reading scripts constantly, the last thing I want to do in my spare time is read books! So, I didn’t know the books until they came to me back in 2011 to do the first two films. I’d heard of Peter Temple, obviously, and I’d read his other book Broken Shore, but I hadn’t read the Jack Irish series. So I of course read them and read the scripts, and I thought the guys had done a really good job of translating them. They also made them more contemporary as well, because the books are set in the eighties, and are particularly focused around the Fitzroy football club in Melbourne, who ran out of money and got picked up by another club up in Queensland, so there’s this really strange sense of loyalty for the fans as they’re connected to this club that’s in a whole other state. So when Temple wrote the books, it was centered around that time, but we’ve made the scripts more present day.
Having now read the books, what do you think are the challenges are when playing a literary character as opposed to a character who is original to a film? It’s often just a more expanded look at the details which make up that character. Obviously things in a book are stretched out over more time, or more time may be spent on any one moment. I remember when we did L.A. Confidential, for example, the book covered a period of eight years, whereas the film really just covered one Christmas. So, reading it, you got to see one story after another of the various characters that we played. For Russell (Crowe) it was Bud White and for me it was Ed Exley. So seeing how those characters respond to all those different situations just fills up the well of information that you glean from the character that you’re gonna play. The difficulty, I suppose, in playing any character; you might play someone who was a reallife person, or you might play somebody who’s there in a book, or you might play somebody who’s only there on the page of a script; you’ve still got to find the essence of that person, of their personality, and to feel like you’re the right person for the job! To be honest, Jack Irish in the books is probably older than me, and that was one
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of the difficulties that we faced; there are some serious, diehard fans of these books who said “Guy Pearce?? No! He’s not right!” But once we made the film, the fans felt that the tone was really reminiscent of the books, and they’ve reluctantly accepted me, ex-Neighbours actor, playing their iconic curmudgeonly weather-beaten Jack! So it was a bit of a task for me feeling like I could step into those shoes, and do a version that I could be honest towards, but still do it slightly differently because I’m
Guy is playing the villainous Reverened later in the year in Brimstone
Photo: Ben Timony/FX
“I’m a terrible reader! The last thing I want to do in my spare time is read books!” fifteen years younger than the character in the books. Ultimately though, reading any of those books, there were all sorts of little details to pick up; just the way that he looks over his shoulder at something, or the way he laughs something off, or the way he doesn’t hear something because he’s caught up in what he’s doing; they’re all little clues into the personality of somebody, or at least the headspace of a character.
You mention Neighbours; after over 400 episodes of the show, how was the transition into Hollywood stardom? The nice thing is that it happened gradually. I finished Neighbours in ’89, and I didn’t do my first American film until ’96. I’d done a couple of other films in between at home, and lots of theatre, so I suppose on some level people, especially in the UK, where Neighbours is so >
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CUARON GUY PEARCE popular, look at us in that show and see us in American films and really see that leap. And of course it is a huge leap! I was really lucky that I got to go to America and promote Priscilla, and then found myself an agent and started auditioning for things. For me, it was big and exciting to go to America and start working there, but it was all sort of part of the same pool of work if that makes sense. Whether you’re doing a small theatre production in Preston, or you’re doing a TV show in Melbourne, or a film in Santa Monica, or a music video somewhere, they’re all the many and varied forms that the art form takes. I’m always having to remind myself that there is this external perspective on, not just my work, but every actor’s work. We’re plodding along and auditioning for things, meeting agents and casting directors, then you get one job in this country, then you go home and do something else, then you get another job and you go somewhere else… It’s all this string of things that you do, and when you look back on it you think “God, that must have seemed amazing that I landed L.A. Confidential!”. And it was amazing. In heinsight and in retrospect, I do look back and think “Jesus, I’ve been lucky”, ‘cause there’s plenty of actors at home, really great actors, who are lucky to string together a few guest roles on shows and get to do some more theatre, and they kind of get stuck in that same cycle of work. I think the opportunity to work oversees was such a lucky one. Particularly then. One of the funniest things Russell ever said to me was that he and I were the last two actors to cross the bridge before they took the toll off it. Meaning that you really had to work for the opportunity to work overseas. But then in the late nineties casting directors in America suddenly went “Hang on a minute, there seems to be some talent in Australia!” Suddenly all these Australian actors were being cast in America, and they were good, no doubt about it, but they were being found by casting directors in Australia as opposed to hawking their wares in America for a few years before getting a job, y’know? So the process really changed; there’s so many great Australian actors working in Australia that have come out of nowhere. One minute they’re in a little theatre group in Tulon, and the next they’re in a big Marvel movie! I
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was just really lucky to be able to ride on the back of a really successful Australian film.
That film, of course, being Priscilla. When you were making it, did you have any idea of the cultural impact the film was going to have? No. (laughs) I read the script and I laughed out loud. I was really excited at the prospect of doing it, and of doing something really different from what I’d done before as well. I always am. Any time someone comes along and tells me I’m gonna play the King of England, or Andy Warhol or whoever, I just go “Wow! This is so vastly different from anything I’ve done before”. So that, as a notion in itself, is what really drives me to keep going. I remember sitting on the plane with Terrence (Stamp)… I think we’d done a screening in Sydney and got a sense from the journalists that we were talking to that this film was having a real impact, not just on a creative level, but on a timing level too, with audiences just being ready to really start breaking down some barriers. There was just something amazing about the timing of that film. I felt so lucky to have been a part of it, and I still think to this day how incredible it is to have been part of something that did have such an effect. Had the film come out ten years before, people might have gone “Oh yeah, that’s fun, but we’re not really ready for that”, and had it come out ten years later, people might have gone “Yeah, great, but you’re a bit late”. So to be part of something that came along at that time was extraordinary. And the show is being done all around the world now; I know Jason (Donovan)’s done it a few times! You look back and you look at the things you’ve done, and as much as you do work sometimes and it’s a flop or it just doesn’t quite work, there are those things that occur as well that are just lucky gems. Priscilla was one of those, if not the greatest one for me. Jack Irish: Blind Faith, Fridays at 10pm on FOX, also available on demand.
GUEST PLAYLIST
Words: Jaclyn O’Connell
S D N U O W N O I T HESITA
M L O B Y JEREM I
n the fall of 2009, I sat in my first car and listened to … To The Beat Of A Dead Horse in the parking lot of a mall where I had an exhausting and unrewarding retail job. Jeremy Bolm’s voice cut through the warm September air, and I remember thinking how unique his wails were, how passionate the words came across, and how quickly songs like ‘Honest Sleep’ and ‘Always Running Never Looking Back’ resonated with me. I had never latched onto an album so quickly. Fast forward to 2012, Bolm bands together with Neeraj Kane (The Hope Conspiracy, The Suicide File, Holy Fever), Stephen LaCour (True Cross, Trap Them), Jay Weinberg (Madball, Against Me!, Slipknot) to create the ultimate supergroup, Hesitation Wounds. Their first self-titled release
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showed a new side of Bolm: the storyteller. With a debut full-length, Awake For Everything on the horizon and hard at work with his record label, Secret Voice, we were able to catch up with the busy frontman for a quick chat.
Hesitation Wounds comes across as the ferocious cousin of the brooding persona that’s presented in Touché Amoré, and both have resonated so well with a wide audience. Was it always in the cards to move further down the path with this band after the selftitled EP was created? There was never a set plan for Hesitation Wounds and I think that’s what’s the beauty of it. With all of us so wrapped up in our own personal lives
jeremy bolm
Bolm has said that NOFX’s Punk In Drublic was the album he realized what punk truly is and that he wanted to get involved
and other endeavors, this band is purely a great release to have when the four of us find time to get together.
Your EP was released on your record label, Secret Voice, but for your first full-length album you’ve chosen to release the record through 6131. What influenced this choice? I love doing Secret Voice with a passion, but I can’t devote the time and energy needed to pushing an LP. This is the reason I’ve only released 7”s thus far. There’s not a lot of pressure put on releasing a 7” for a band. They’re more fun than anything. I’ve got a discography for the band SAETIA coming out soon, but they’ve been broken up almost 20 years, not a lot of pressure there either, haha.
I’ve worked with Joey Cahill (owner of 6131) with Touche Amoré and he also happens to be my best friend. He came to me at a time when we were trying to figure out where it should land and it worked out great. I haven’t released anything with them since 2010 I believe, so it’s great working together again.
The songs on your EP rolled together like chapters in a book, offering a story to the listener. Would you say you took this same approach with Awake For Everything, but with a more socio-political theme? Well we had more time, but truthfully we were as productive as we were with the 7”. I believe we wrote 3 songs Monday, 4 Songs Tuesday, 3 songs Wednesday, went over them Thursday,
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GUEST PLAYLIST of sickening FOX media coverage and lack of concern from congress that made me put pen to paper and do the best I could at expressing my feelings. It’s the same reason I wrote ‘Guthrie’; the right wing response to immigrants from Mexico/Refugees is enough to write a thousand pissed-off songs.
[and] recorded drums Friday. One of the songs we wrote at the time we got together to play our first couple of shows because we needed another song. The recording process took a while though. Jay tracked drums in one day, and then Neeraj got in a motorcycle accident and fucked up his wrist, so guitar tracks came a bit later. Scuba recorded his bass tracks back in Arizona where he lives. I had a few months to get vocals together.
The lyrics in ‘Hands Up’ are very politically charged, addressing a large issue we have in the US, police-related deaths and how race plays a part in that. Other than the obvious injustice of these events, what brought you to write this song? I’ve never considered myself a politically charged person, because honestly I don’t follow politics as closely as I maybe should. I do however feel the same sadness and shame that you’d hope most people do when they see what’s happening in this country without having to search stories out. I’d only taken a stab at a political song once in my life and it was for a Touché song from our first record called ‘History Reshits Itself’ about the ban on gay marriage. I think it’s a confidence thing with me that I just don’t feel like I’m the right person for the job, but when writing the lyrics for this record, it was post Ferguson/post Charleston shootings and the waves 40 VULTUREHOUND MAY 2016
How have your political views changed over the years, and how has that influenced your music? I’ve always voted Democrat and consider myself a liberal. This hasn’t changed. I was raised by a mother who was a Democrat, so it wasn’t hard to convince me. It hasn’t influenced my music, but more my musical taste. It wasn’t how I found punk rock, but it helped me feel like I was where I belonged.
As a fellow record collector, I’ve been dying to ask this question for a few years. What is your most treasured record in your vast collection? HARD QUESTION… I have two. Both for sentimental reasons. 1. Converge - Axe To Fall (clear w/ color shards - 1st press of 100). This was a gift from the staff at Deathwish, Inc. when I first got to know them. It was such a kind gesture and it’s forever in my heart. Deathwish was always my favorite label and Converge my favorite aggressive band. One of those “Is this real life?” moments. 2. Far/Incubus split 7”. Far was my favorite band for SO many years and my Mom mail ordered me a t-shirt from Immortal Records for my 14th birthday. My Mom must have told them it was my birthday because they threw in a lot of extra stickers, etc., but included this 7”. It was my first record well before I started collecting.
JEREMY BOLM’S
T S I L Y A L P T GUES
NAILBOMB – WASTING AWAY Sepultura / Fudge Tunnel side project band that released one record. This is the first song and it rips super fucking hard.
DEADGUY – PINS AND NEEDLES Neeraj and I were listening to a lot of Deadguy before writing AWAKE FOR EVERYTHING. The first song “Operatic” I feel is a big indicator of that.
PROPAGANDHI – FUCK THE BORDER 15 years after its release and the lyrics still hold true and that’s actually depressing. Nothing has gotten better. Our song Guthrie can live happily in the shadows of this song’s greatness.
COALESCE – HARVEST OF MATURITY A vicious tune by Coalesce that is sure to make you want to smash something. An incredible song about change within one self that comes after a deep inner reflection. At least thats how I take it.
BOTCH – JOHN WOO This has always been my favorite Botch tune. We took influence by Botch and Deadguy equally on the song “Ends Pt 1.”
LEFT FOR DEAD – STANDING BY If there is one thing Left For Dead was… was pissed off. “My only consolation is the knowledge of your suffering, living in filth dying in filth -
drowning, choking on your own waste…”. You can’t phone that in.
UNBROKEN – ABSENTEE DEBATE Perfect song. Perfect lyrics. The drawn out mosh ending is definitely an influence to our song “Bleach” and from our 7” the song “Realism”.
SNAPCASE – CABOOSE I know this is like choosing Track 1 from a Greatest Hits collection as your favorite song.. but motherfuck did Snapcase write the perfect banger. The energy in this song is nearly unmatched and that alone is an influence. That snare drum.
VISION OF DISORDER – IMPRINT Scuba and I have a soft spot for VOD. Many conversations throughout our friendship have involved this band. It’s hard to pick a favorite song.. He pushed for a song off Imprint so I chose the title track as the intro is a favorite of mine. “I’ll tear you apart cuz I ain’t one to fuck with” is one of the harder lines in a song I’ve ever heard. File that under lyrics I could never get away with.
WILL HAVEN – I’VE SEEN MY FAT This song if anything makes you bang your head and at the same time makes you want to stomp your feet on the floor as hard as you can. Some of the drop parts on Awake For Everything give me this feeling. Specifically, the choruses to ‘Ends Pt 1’ and ‘Hands Up’. MAY 2016 VULTUREHOUND 41
MOTHXR
PENN BADGLEY ost people will know Penn Badgley as ‘Lonely Boy’, Dan Humphries from Gossip Girl, but for the last few years he has taken a step back from acting to follow in the footsteps (or walk alongside) of fellow cast mates Taylor Momsen and Leighton Meister and try his hand in the world of music. The band; Mothxr bring their own brand of sultry electro indy rock, with a heavy Brooklyn twinge.
M
We managed to get some time backstage with Penn in Birmingham ahead of their support slot for The Neighbourhood.
How’s the tour going, you’ve been on the road for a little while now? Yeah, you know it would be crazy to say that the tour is going any better than good. There are all kinds of things that happen: good and > bad, but the response has been
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MUSIC
FORMER ‘GOSSIP GIRL’ PENN BADGLEY SPOKE WITH SHANE BAYLISS ABOUT HIS BAND...
MOTHXR MAY 2016 VULTUREHOUND 43
MOTHXR
"I DON'T KNOW THAT IT ACTUAL L Y MAT TERS THAT MUCH, IT HAS BECOME THIS KEYWORD FOR SOMETHING THAT IS COOL”
great, crowds every night are really, really into it. That’s a testament to The Neighbourhood, it’s not us, but I suppose if anything it is a testament to how we are rising to the occasion. It feels good!
Last time we saw you was in this venue on the first headline tour... Yeah, wow, that was rough! Some of the other towns were good, but Birmingham we played to like ten people!
We were quite surprised, because the London show on that tour looked crazy!? Yeah right, it was sold out. I think we even had two nights in London sold out, and then Birmingham was just..
We felt perhaps that it was poorly booked and promoted, because we didn’t know about it until a few days before. Well this will be packed, and again it’s not for us, but like I said I think we’ve been rising up to the level and the fans are really into it, it has been a lot of fun.
There is a massive crowd 44 VULTUREHOUND MAY 2016
out there already, with some people queuing since midday. Around the block!
It must be great to play for fans that are so passionate about a band. Passionate about music, they want to see it. It is cool to play to kids this age actually, it’s easy to be a snob about it, but it’s just fun because they care, they care more than any other group of people, I feel.
Yeah, the fact that they are out queuing to get in at this point, whereas if you went to see someone like AC/DC for example, that age of fan wouldn’t necessarily turn up for the support act they’d find out what time the headliner was on and get there ten minutes before. Exactly! Every night we come out to a packed auditorium and it is awesome, and they are super responsive.
The début album came out in February, is it nice to get that out because it feels like a long time coming?
Penn provided his own vocals for songs when he played Tim Buckley
Yeah, definitely it was like a year ago when we basically had the record finished and we were here and it was not the same thing, we were playing to the smaller crowds and it was frustrating because we felt we could be supporting a record and playing to bigger crowds. But to have something out there, its awesome!
So you’d been sitting on it quite a while? Some of the material, not all of it. I’d say as a project it’s been
ready to go for a long time and we are just now picking up momentum with the release, it’s been a long time coming for us, we started the project two years ago. It’s just nice to say “hey, we have a record out” and they’ve heard it, and they know songs and there are like four singles out, so yeah anybody is going to want that.
So it has been received well by those that have heard it, in that you’ve got
people singing along to all the songs? There are quiet a few people that it seems like every night are aware of the band and some of the songs.
In the interview you did with Cosmo, you said that Easy was a snap shot in time, and that this is also a snap shot in time. Does that mean that the next album will be completely different?
I think the next record will sound substantially different, we’ve record some of it and there is a common thread through everything we do, but it is definitely evolutionary and progressive, it would be boring if it wasn’t.
In terms of you launching the band you are Brooklyn based, did that make it easier for you to organically grow because the New York crowd > DECEMBER MAY 2O15 2016 VULTUREHOUND 45 09
MOTHXR
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MUSIC seems different to the LA crowd, which is seemingly obsessed with celebrity. Did you find at New York shows you were getting crowds coming along just for the music? Yeah, but I also think the internet has changed things. LA isn’t just LA, Brooklyn isn’t just Brooklyn and London isn’t just London, you know what I mean? If you make music and put it out in anyway, it is out there for people to hear. The fact that we live in Brooklyn is just a happen stance, we didn’t record much in Brooklyn, most of our shows aren’t in Brooklyn, even though we love being there and it is a part of who were are. But I don’t know that it actually matters that much, it has become this keyword for something that is cool but a lot of Brooklyn and New York City is changing a lot, like every city and it isn’t the only place that is cool.
Going back to the Cosmo interview, and you were asked a question about gender bias and the fact that you guys were a ‘hot band’. What were your feelings on that, because if I were to interview a female music star, and suggest she was ‘hot’ it would be seen as chauvinistic. Was it something that you even picked up on at the time?
At this point I can’t react every time I hear something like that, or someone says something like that. If it helps us fuck it, use ‘em if you got em! I mean frankly I don’t think that much of it either way, I don’t have a reaction. It’s Cosmo, you know what I mean? Nothing against them at all, that’s just the slant they might have.
In terms of the sound and the evolution of the music, is this the kind of music you’ve been into? Because if someone had pitched me a band with Penn from Gossip Girl, this isn’t the direction I’d have seen it going. Is this the music you enjoy, and that you and the band have brought together? Absolutely, there are several different ways you can look at this project. Everybody brings something to the table no doubt, I mean the catalyst for the band was born between me and Jimmy. He’s an immensely talented producer, who’s able to see talent in someone else and draw it out of someone like me, so he and I always knew we wanted to make a project. The other guys we knew we wanted to bring them in because they have a lot to contribute as well, they help flesh out the bare bones of ideas and bring a lot of technical and theoretical knowledge. We are all contributing in our different
ways, I’m very much a writer, lyricist and abstract idea kind of person. Because we all sit down and record at the same time, we are all influencing and feeding off of each other. For instance Jimmy gives direction, and then maybe that sparks someone’s fire and then you all start to give off a certain vibe and give a lot to the song at that moment. I would certainly say this is my vibe, I didn’t play the music on the record, I contribute and I don’t mean this in a way to build up my role, but we all contributed to the music just as much because we were all heavily involved in every decision made, if someone played a cord me and Jimmy would be like “make it warmer, make it darker, make it softer”.
It’s not like someone came along with some lyrics and said “the music is already recorded” Well no clearly because it was the four of us and we did everything together, I wrote the lyrics but every now and then a lyric would come from Jimmy, or it would sound like something else and someone would point that out and the alternate lyric worked better, same thing with melodies. We all influence each other equally, and although it is definitely my vibe and the music I’ve been hearing in my head, I would the say the same goes for the other guys as well.
>
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MOTHXR
Lyrically, you’ve got song titles like ‘Stranger’, ‘Fight the Feeling’ and ‘Victim’ they seem like quite personal song titles and lyrics. I’m not the best at really hearing lyrics in songs for some reason, could you elaborate?
refined lines, pull out words and put words in, it was deeply personal. To me every song is an exercise in exploring the other side of a central theme.
Are the lyrics a personal thing?
Stepping away from music, in 2008 you heavily backed Barack Obama. Now I know you’ve been on tour, and haven’t necessarily been home but we are at a point where we can’t ignore the current political situation in the United States...
Very much, the whole time while Jimmy is making a beat, or Simon and Darren are trying to play out an intelligent chord progression, I always had my note book and was writing things out. I would write masses of things, and then we would whittle it down to these
I can’t find a way to be an honest good human and participate in partisan politics, it doesn’t mean I won’t vote at all, but I think to me this election more than any other has revealed what a charade it is. I think we are just completely disappointed.
I also mumble quite a bit! It’s kind of my style.
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Man I don’t know, for the first time I am completely at a loss for words regarding the presidential election, we aren’t even there yet and you kind of see where it is going to go and I can’t believe where it is going, and I wish that voting was not the only way people thought they could make a difference, I wish that that was the bare minimum. I’m deeply passionate about the state of the world and human affairs, and justice and seeking justice, honestly I try to live that in my life. Voting should be a very small act out of many, and take that however you want. A huge thanks to Penn and the rest of Mothxr, and you can get there début album ‘Centerfold’ at all reputable music retailers.
CUARON GOO GOO DOLLS
Words: Jaclyn O’Connell
W
e’re a privileged generation. Thanks to rideshare services, such as Lyft and Uber, I can get a ride downtown without having to raise my hand on the side of street or even taking out my wallet. And, thanks to media streaming services, such as Netflix and Hulu, I can watch unlimited amounts of movies and TV from the comfort of my couch or on the not-socomfortable metro ride to work. It’s safe to say that our contenthungry generation is well fed by technology. Well, except for the content creators, who continually feed our bloated bellies.
Goo Goo Dolls original name was The Sex Maggots
john rezeznik
Artists, even writers, are suffering from the accessibility of the internet. And, honestly, it sucks not getting paid for something you created or helped to create. In music, the best example of this unjust silent agreement artists have entered is Spotify. The billion-dollarvalued streaming service make listening to music so accessible that you can listen to music you didn’t even pay for without an internet connection. They’ll take your monthly subscription payment and allow to you play songs endlessly, from anywhere.
o o g goo
s l l do
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But the major bummer in all of this is that the artists, who pour their blood, sweat, tears into their music, hardly see any of that, if at all. And, if they acquire any revenue from these services, it’s the smallest fraction of a cent. An industry that used to rely so heavily on record companies and music shops
is now buckling under the weight of easily accessible content.
so you better keep the people who supply the content happy. They just don’t do that.”
Sidebar: I need to make a confession. I pay for and use Spotify daily. I actually credit Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist for introducing me to some stellar new artists. The service is great from a user standpoint. But as a creator of content, I’ve been sent into a shame spiral, contemplating if I should end my subscription and delete the app from my phone. But when you spend hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars each year on records and going to shows like I do, trust me, the guilt fades pretty quickly.
Despite the industry’s struggles to win a war that’s gone on for far too long, he’s openly optimistic that the issue will hit a “critical mass” and eventually artists, even writers, will be properly compensated for their work. “Hopefully I will be long retired at that point. It will come around, what artists are worth.”
Now, where were we? Ah, yes… Streaming services have only amplified a battle that’s been raging since the early 2000s, and even artists as successful as the Goo Goo Dolls feel the ground quake beneath them from decreased artist income and an ever-increasing need for more music and more shows. In a space where some artists hardly see a dollar for their work, John Rzeznik acknowledges how blessed he and his band have been throughout the past three decades. He also acknowledges that you should do what you love, but value your time, or no one else will. “You make music because you need to, it’s part of breathing or eating. We’re one of the lucky ones. There’s more music than ever and people listen to music so intensely, but the way that they get it, it’s just different and the way that record companies work, it just doesn’t fit into the new world. I think that the battle, I don’t know if they’re ever going to win the war. It certainly seems as though that the battle of how people are going to get music has been lost by the record companies.” Having sold more than 12 million records, performed in nearly every country and received Grammy nominations, and a new album, Boxes due out this May, Rzeznik still feels the effects of the music industry’s battle for compensation. The Goo Goo Dolls frontman remembers when CDs and two-year tours helped to pay his bills in order to live a comfortable life. “It would be nice to get an equitable share of the all money that’s being made. I mean, these companies that are online are being valued for billions of dollars and the artists don’t see any of it. Nothing. It’s maddening to people. It’s maddening to artists who are like ‘Well, can we at least get a piece?’ It’s a content-driven business and if there’s not content, there’s no business,
Lucky for us GGD fans, Rzeznik still tours for long periods of time, Chicago and London being his top two favorite cities to play. He’s also acutely aware of their fan base. “It’s weird, we have more female fans in the US and more male fans in the UK”, Rzeznik explains. But gender aside, if 1998’s Dizzy Up The Girl didn’t make you completely fall in love with the band, or even Rzeznik individually, then I’m not really sure how I can help you. Ironically (but not surprisingly) ‘Iris’ is the GGD’s most played song on Spotify with over one million plays. When asked about the theme of their upcoming album, Boxes, Rzeznik says that themes aren’t usually planned and that they “tend to reveal themselves once the album is finished”. But he mentions that this album is largely about change and growth, which is pretty apparent in the recently released single ‘So Alive’, an energetic poprock anthem that is sure to hit radio airwaves. Though Rzeznik has been writing music for nearly 30 years and has been honoured with the Songwriters Hall of Fame Hal Starlight Award, he still comes across as incredibly humble. But, like any music veteran, he offers some sage advice to young artists, saying that one of the most crucial parts of the writing process is to just let go of your ego. He should know. After years of playing the defense when it came to the writing process, Rzeznik finally allowed himself to open up and share the process with others, which he believes makes this upcoming album really stand out. Rzeznik mentions that, even though Dizzy Up The Girl has cast a long-lasting shadow on the success of his and the band’s career, his current infatuation is with their new album. And, whether you stream Boxes on Spotify or pick up a physical format on May 6th, the Goo Goo Dolls, and all other creators, will continue to put their blood, sweat, and tears into their music because, according to Rzeznik, “it’s just what you do”.
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REVIEWS
Words: Ryan Pollard
CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR
5/5
ust recently, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice hit our screens with a setup premise of superhero against superhero, and while the hype surrounding that film was immense, the movie ended up being a joyless, disappointing mess. With Captain America: Civil War on the other hand, the Russo Brothers and Marvel have not only made a film that is vastly superior to Zack Snyder’s troubled production on every possible level, but they have made both the best Marvel movie to date and one of the greatest comic-book/superhero movies of all time. Ever since its release in 2007, the Civil War storyline shook up the Marvel universe in the comics, and with the film, that same impact has happened again, and after this film, everything changes for the Marvel Cinematic Universe and all the better for it.
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Many people have referred to this as Avengers 2.5, but this feels like a Captain America movie, as it should be. It begins and ends with Cap, it’s basically his storyline that started in The First Avenger, progressed forward with The Winter Soldier and the two Avengers movies, and here with Civil War, you
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see his story close on a hugely satisfying note. Thanks to the writing-duo of Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (who also wrote Winter Soldier together), this is a superbly written movie, being a story that isn’t afraid of taking huge risks that a lot of other comic-book/superhero movies have been afraid to tackle and show us something that felt brand new and exciting, making us more emotionally invested in the characters than we have been before. The tension and conflict between the two superhero factions was built up as the story progressed, so when the actual war begins, it feels real and earned, and you know and understand what both sides are fighting for and why. Because of this, you constantly flip-flop between the two sides, not fully deciding as to whose side you’re really on, and that just shows how much rich and deep character development has gone into this film. While it is true that you don’t have to watch the previous MCU movies to understand what’s going on, it is highly recommended to have seen the previous twelve movies and spend all that time with these characters in order for that emotional investment to hit hard here. This seems like the first Marvel movie to have serious repercussions, and it cleverly deals with annoying plot holes and inconsistencies of the
my superhero-ranking list (you’ll see why). This movie had to develop the already established heroes whilst also setting up and introducing two new heroes to the universe and as far as Black Panther is concerned, Chadwick Boseman is amazing. His origin story and the character-arc he’s given here doesn’t feel forced or shoehorned in as he’s given the time and respect he deserves, his action style is immense and Boseman is fearsome in the role.
previous films in the MCU. As far as the action sequences go, each and every action setpiece here is pulse-pounding with superb choreography and holds a few surprises, which the trailers actually left out for a change. The much-talked-about airport battle was simply sublime, being not just the best action sequence yet seen in a superhero flick, but one of the best action scenes in cinema history. And that finale? At long last, we have something that’s different; the final confrontation between Captain America and Iron Man is so small and personal, yet the events of it is what makes it tower over other entries in the franchise. It doesn’t take a floating city or an alien invasion to make it epic, but by God was it epic as a result of its emotional impact. The entire cast brings their A-game with Chris Evans delivering his best performance as the titular hero to date, whilst Robert Downey Jr. shows a new and darker side to Iron Man that we have never seen before in the other movies. The rest of the supporting cast are also great with particular standouts being Elizabeth Olsen who is emotionally compelling as Scarlet Witch, Paul Bettany adding a more human layer to the Vision, and Paul Rudd is simply hilarious as Ant-Man and has just ascended
However, the big concern everyone had and the key aspect everyone was so intrigued by is, of course, Spider-Man, and there was no one that was more concerned than me. Out of all the countless superheroes in history, the one superhero that had always resonated with me and had always been my personal favourite was Spider-Man, and in cinema, the character and his world just lost his way thanks to Sam Raimi’s terrible Spider-Man 3 and Marc Webb’s average attempt at rebooting the franchise with The Amazing Spider-Man movies. With Spidey now back home at Marvel and making his big introduction into the MCU here, did all the hard work pay off? One-hundred per cent yes! This is, hands down, the best onscreen version of the web-slinger to date, and every single aspect of the character and his world is nailed, being by far the best part about the movie. It felt new and fresh, reminding us why Spider-Man is such a beloved character, and the film does a superb job at showing us both sides of the character (Peter Parker and Spider-Man), plus his powers and abilities are handled fantastically. It’s all thanks to Tom Holland that we believe him as Spider-Man and he does a phenomenal job at being both vulnerable and hilariously charismatic at the same time, plus you do get the sense that he is just a young kid that’s starting out. Also, having Marisa Tomei as Aunt May is a stroke of genius. This is the Spider-Man we’ve all been waiting for, and that just makes it all the more exciting for the solo movie. As far as the negatives go, the only problem is with the central villain in Helmut Zemo. Despite Daniel Bruhl giving a solid performance, his character felt contrived and his motivations makes little sense, but that is only a minor niggle and at least he’s easier to understand than Jesse Eisenberg’s terrible Lex Luthor in Batman v Superman. As for the post credit scenes, the first is solid if weirdly structured, but the second is a perfect, tantalising little teaser for a movie that is heading our way next year. All in all, Captain America: Civil War is a damn near perfect Marvel movie, being the best film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and being a true testament to its genre. It’s the most grown-up Marvel film yet seen, addressing things on a human level, and ironically, this is what Batman v Superman tried and failed to be. Each and every character is given their moment to shine (particularly Spidey), and takes the MCU to new peaks and heights, and crucially, it’s one of those films that really benefits from repeat viewings.
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FINAL WORD
SHANE BAYLISS
his issue I want to give a shout out to ‘The Boss’ and no not Sasha Banks she’s the ‘Legit Boss’ but American Rock icon Bruce Springsteen. Bruce opted to pull a concert in North Carolina in protest of the states backward law which was passed requiring individuals to use bathrooms corresponding to their biological sex, this means that transgender members of society must use the toilet for the gender listed on their birth certificate. The moronic law HB2 also means that North Carolina’s LGBT population are unable to sue for discrimination, so essentially you can be sacked from a job for being gay and there isn’t shit you can do for it. Last time I checked we are in 2016, and laws like this are outdated and utter bullshit!
T
“Some things are more important than a rock show and this fight against prejudice and bigotry — which is happening as I write — is one of them” were some of the words that Springsteen said in his official statement, and I’m damn proud that someone with Springsteen’s status and influence spoke up. It is far to easy I feel
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FINAL WORD for an artist to just ignore social issues, and just live in a dream world but in reality artists have a duty to speak up and speak out. I don’t care if you are in Little Mix or Take That, if you have fans then you owe it to ALL your fans to set and example and speak on their behalf. Music is the greatest platform for social change Lady Gaga has 58.3 million followers on Twitter, where as David Cameron, the man in charge of this country has just 1.42million. Bruce won’t be the only person protesting the new law, Against Me! will be playing in in the state as an act of solidarity with her fellow LGBT family “I’m not not going to North Carolina and playing a show I want to play because of some assholes. Boycotting is totally commendable and I see it as an act of solidarity. It’s about being in solidarity with people there who are against this or who are trans themselves - they can’t boycott their own state. They still have to go to work and go shopping and generate tax. That makes it all the more important to me to go there and be seen as a trans person and use whatever resources I have to draw attention to it and point people in the proper direction of how to make changes and help.” Against Me! will use the show to raise
even more awareness “At the show in May I really want to empower people. It’s gonna be a benefit for Time Out Youth, a local queer-friendly youth dropin centre.” My point with this is this, big up ‘The Boss’ and people take his example. What is happening in North Carolina, and thankfully we live in a country where things are a little bit better but it can easily change and we need to make sure they we support and stand up for the rights of everyone in our communities, because Martin Niemöller said it in the 1940s; “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.” In reality, not a lot has changed just the names and faces.” -Martin Niemöller